W e work primarily with mouse models where we can examine T cell responses in vivo at a high resolution. Experiments in human cells and monitoring immunity in non-human primates are also used in the lab. We use transgenic and knockout mice of various flavors routinely - and generate some of our own. The mechanisms we study are relevant to a wide variety of patho-physiological contexts. So, depending on the specific experimental question, we may use the following mouse models available in the lab ::


Autoimmunity :
  • Arthritis
  • Psoriasis / Dermatitis

Transplantation:
  • Hyperacute rejection
  • Solid Graft rejection

Infectious disease:
  • Influenza PR8
  • Pneumonia Virus of Mice
  • Leishmania
  • Plasmodium


Vaccine Models:
  • Yellow Fever - YF17D
  • Rubella
  • Polio
  • HPV (Gardasil)
  • Measles
  • Pertussis (whole cell and acellular)
  • HCV - experimental

Tumor:
  • Melanoma (B16)

The lab uses a wide variety of cellular and molecular techniques as required by particular experiments. On any given week we may be doing any or all of these in the lab...

  • Isolation of primary T, B and Dendritic cells, magnetic bead purifications, MACS etc.
  • Flow Cytometry & Cell sorting
  • Overexpression/Knockdown of genes in primary lymphocytes using Amaxa nucleofaction, Retroviral transduction or Electroporation
  • Retrogenic mice - retroviral transduction of primary Bone Marrow stem cells followed by generation of chimeric mice (primarily to clone & express specific T cell receptors)
  • ELISAs, Luminex, Bead array & other cytokine measurements
  • TCR repertoire analysis, MHC tetramers, expression in insect cells
  • Culture, growth and infection with parasites, viruses
  • Cell culture and in vitro assays for T or DC function
  • In-house cell fusion and generation of monoclonal antibodies
  • RNAseq, single-cell RNAseq & CITEseq
  • single-cell ATACseq & ASAPseq
  • Standard molecular biology & biochemistry techniques.

R

eagents from the lab: